Farmingdale. NY – it’s not over ‘until it’s over, but, kindness …
With only 12 single matches left in this 45 Cup RyderEurope has opened a stunning seven-point lead to Americans and seems to be destined to become the first road team to win the title in 13 years-a feat that Rory Mcilroy said it would be “there with the biggest achievements in the game”. How have Americans found in this unimaginable state? Let the second conjecture start and catch the armchair! Here are nine reasons – beyond only “Europe has been better!” – this FORCE Explain why the US has taken it to the chin at Bethpage Black.
1. Configuration of the very convenient course
Bethpage Black, who normally breathes out of fires, was barely known this week. Believing that a protected black course favored his players, the American captain KEEGAN BRADLEY Expanded the straight roads and got the rough, leaving Bethpage’s weekend fighters asking, “hey, why don’t they put the course like this for us?” A forgiving configuration was made even more when the midweek storms made the flattened slow and soft marshmallow greens, which was not what Bradley wanted. He said he was hoping for more green speed in accordance with what his players in PGA Tour face. “I’ve never seen Bethpage Greens playing this soft ever,” he said Saturday evening. “Even when we played here and it’s rain. That’s something I’ve never seen. The chips are rotating backwards.”
US captains have always favored less approximate configurations (at least in the area of steering areas), the idea is that their players-who have historically been longer than the Euro-can overcome that style of deployment. In other words, in a race with bird ships, yanks like their chances. The problem is, when it comes to distance, Europeans are caught. Going in the matches, Golf Data predicted that the US would have a single 0.4 yard car. A rounding error. The US also has the shortest hitter from both sides to Russell HenleyAnd he played twice in four times. “He’s too short to play four,” Sam Torrance bowed to Sky Sports Telekastin. Torrance may have been right; Henley went 0-2 in the format.
“I think it’s hard enough these days to set up courses to favor one side,” European captain Luke Donald said on Saturday night. “Look statistically 1 to 12, there is never a big difference between the two teams.”
Perhaps the US, given the recent success of Americans in the diplomas, has to attract an 180 in its thinking and create home games like major. Extract tee; grows rough; And get the cooking of the greens. Complete Oakmont. If American players’ games, as they will argue, are more complete than Tee in Green, a tougher configuration will seem to benefit them more than a lighter one.
“I think we are looking at the analytical data and how our players perform to their maximum and we set the course accordingly,” Bradley said earlier this week, stopping to articulate what the analytics said exactly. A source told Golf.com that European Vice President Edoardo Molinari, who oversees the analytics of the European team, also felt Bullish for placing the black course on the occasion, claiming that his softer, softer attributes would benefit from the euro as much, if not, more than their opponents.
2. Europe was (once again) prepared Uber
A couple of weeks ago, the European team went down to Bethpage to study the finer points of the course. They played 27 holes for two days and learned where they were aggressive (and caring), and how to read Greens’s delicate vacation. Donald gave his troops a guide to the course strategy he, he said, included “some of the requirements and some of the things that have proven to be successful in the tours past here”, adding, “We saw some statistics on Bethpage, where setting within 6 legs was a little more important than most weeks.” The euro have been deadly from that range this week – and for almost every other range, too. Bradley called it well by putting it well “historically”.
3
Anyone that happens Sunday, Bradley’s insistence on partnership Harris English and Collin Morikawa not once, but twice this week is a decision that will hurt his captain. According to Whizzes Quant on Data Golf, English and Morikawa – stop us if you’ve heard this before – were, mathematically, the least protected pairing of the 132 possible permutations on the US.
Analytics, Schmanalytics, you say? Quite right. But when the duo collapsed 5 and 4 by Rory Mcilroy and Tommy Fleetwood on Friday in the fourth, Bradley made the call to pull them back to the same format on Saturday. Their opponents: yes, mcilroy and fleetwood again. The result? Another loss, 3 and 2, which could have been uglier if not for two birds of birds from Americans at 13 and 14. Final Birdie counts over two matches: 12 for Mcilroy and Fleetwood vs only four for English and Morikawa.
4. The hesitation from the pivot
When Bradley was asked on Friday night why he was sending English and Morikawa again on Saturday, he was loved in his reasoning. “We have a plan of what we will do,” he said. “They beat us today, but you know. We’re really happy with our plan. We’re really happy with those two players.” He added, “We will not panic and make those kinds of mistakes. We will adhere to what we know.”
There is a difference between panic and pivot, and given the discouraging result of the first day, which ended in the euro leading by three, Bradley should have been ready to adjust his strategy, despite what the data said. Captains should have a short rent with players out-of-form., Morikawa, Henley-but Bradley looked some devoted in his plan that he would follow him from a rock.
Bradley also limited Ben griffin in just one team match. This is in the tactic acceptable when you have a quorum of players holding your team, but it wasn’t this week. For the sake of finding a spark, Bradley should have given Griffin-a double winner of the tour this year-a second look. “Hope he is disappointed; he must be,” Bradley said. “I would whisper. I sat down a whole day on Saturday at Gleneagles. It was one of the lowest moments of my career. Along with Phil (Mickelson), we sat down. Hope (griffin) come out to try me wrong and ready to go out and win his point.”
5. KEEGAN QUESTION
Bradley completely embraced his captain’s duties, which does not mean that he also did not think of what he would have been to adapt and play, a privilege he can have enjoyed if he would have used one of the six elections of his captain over himself. “I grab myself every time and then looking at the road down the road, seeing the boys walking on the road well and thinking about how bad I would like to do it, and how bad I would like to be in the group with Scottie Scheffler and seeing him play and be his teammate,” Bradley said earlier this week. “In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, I could have been there.”
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He is not the only one who thinks that – that’s how we are! Would Bradley have been more effective this week than, to say, the choice of captain Harris English, who is 0-2 and has lost 3.33 strokes? Quite possible. Bradley is a supreme ball, which was ranked 9th in SG: Tee To Green in Tour this season, which is a deeply valuable asset in four -omes games. He is also an emotional player who is fed by the galleries. (Oh, and you may have heard, he played the black course more times than he could count during his years of St. John’s College.) Hard to not believe that the KB would not have a positive impact with the clubs in his hands this week.
6.
The selection of the second conjecture captain are definitely a stuffed exercise, because who means if, to say, Chris Gotrup or Mav Mcnealy would have done better than any of Bradley’s current choices? We will never. However, Bradley’s wild cards have had a hard week, collecting a combined record of 4-9-2. Here’s the decay:
Cameron Young: 2-1-0
Patrick Cantlay: 1-2-1
Sam Burns: 0-1-1
Justin Thomas: 1-2-0
Ben Griffin: 0-1-0
Collin Morikawa: 0-2-0
The apparent representation of the group has been the US team’s general MVP: Cameron Youngwho has gained a strong 4.28 stroke this week, according to the Date Golf. (The best on the US side is Bryson Dechambeau on +1.93.)
7. Speaking of Cameron Young…
In retrospect, Bradley would probably have benefited from the assignment of young people who had finished T11 or better in his last five before the Ryder Cup and turned into one of the best game partners-in one of Friday’s fourth pairs. Not only is he new in shape, but he is popular ‘around these parts, as he grew up in the New York City area, just north of here in Westchester County, and won a New York state in the black course. The US lost 3-1 opening session, and it is difficult not to think with young people playing, they may not have escaped with a split.
8. Surprise Scottie
Scottie Scheffler is the world’s best indisputable player, but the same cannot be said about his match game. After a 0-4 start this week, it is now 2-6-3 lives in Ryder Cup. As my colleague James Colgan notedDuring a Friday stretch Scheffler went 18 consecutive holes without a bird. In a course this gentle, this is like Steph Curry missing 18 direct shootings. Hard to understand.
In justice, Scheffler did not play so bad this week; He simply did not receive much of his partners, namely Russell Henley with whom Scheffler cooperated with twice. After their fourth loss Saturday in Bob Macintyre and Victor Hovland, Henley said, “I really just a scottie riding. He has played so well today. He did everything.”
Scheffler, for his loan, seemed to take his bumps in step. “It would be easy for boys to whisper and feel bad for themselves and a kind of mope,” Bradley said. “No single person did it, and Scottie is at the top of that list.”
9. The links that connect
While Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood were celebrating their 3-and-2 victory on Saturday Fourball to Scottie Scheffler and Bryson Dechambeau, Rose grabbed the back of Fleetwood’s head and pulled the headwood head towards him so that their balls were printed together. It was a small moment but also the type of tender show of kinship and respect that you rarely, if you ever see between two American players. Americans are different wires. They are simply. It is not that they do not care about each other or do not burn to win. They do. But the European glue is contagious; You can see it in almost every match.
And now Europeans are on the verge of a explosion victory. While Donald elaborated with seven points of his team from the 18th green on Saturday evening, he said, “I really didn’t imagine this.”
No one did.

